Israel continues to bomb Gaza City and Rafah, martyrs' toll at 32,490
GAZA, Palestine (AFP) - Israeli forces pounded besieged Gaza on Wednesday in the war sparked by the October 7 attack and fought Hamas around several hospitals despite a UN Security Council demand for a ceasefire.
The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said that at least 32,490 people have been martyred in the territory during more than five months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants. The toll includes at least 76 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 74,889 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.
Talks in Qatar towards a truce and hostage release deal, involving US and Egyptian mediators, have brought no result so far, with Israel and the Palestinian militant group blaming each other. Tensions have risen between Israel and its top ally the United States over the soaring civilian death toll and dire food shortages in Gaza, and Israeli plans to push its ground offensive into the far-southern city of Rafah, which is packed with displaced civilians.
In heavy overnight bombardment, Israeli strikes again hit Gaza City and Rafah, where a fireball lit up the sky over the city crowded with up to 1.5 million people, most of them displaced by the war.
Israeli forces have battled militants in and around three Gaza hospitals, raising fears for patients, medical staff and displaced people inside them. Fighting has raged since last week around Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital, the territory's largest, and more recently near two hospitals in the main southern city of Khan Yunis, Al-Amal and Nasser.
The army and Shin Bet security service said they were "continuing to conduct precise operational activities" in both cities "while preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams and medical equipment". The army said dozens of militants have been killed "in the area" of Al-Shifa and "hundreds of terrorists have been apprehended".
Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles have also massed around the Nasser Hospital, the Gaza health ministry said, adding that shots were fired but no raid had yet been launched. A military spokesperson told AFP "we're operating in the area, but we haven't been inside the hospital". The Palestinian Red Crescent warned that thousands were trapped inside and "their lives are in danger".
Death toll 'far too high'
The UN Security Council on Monday passed its first resolution demanding an "immediate ceasefire" in Gaza and the release of the captives. The United States, which had blocked previous resolutions, abstained, drawing an angry rebuke from Israel as Defence Minister Yoav Gallant was in Washington.
Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin stressed, before meeting Gallant, that "the number of civilian casualties is far too high, and the amount of humanitarian aid is far too low" in Gaza. Israeli and Hamas envoys have engaged in weeks of indirect talks aimed at halting the fighting, but both sides said this week the talks were failing.
Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari has said that, although the CIA and Mossad chiefs had left Doha, the talks were "ongoing" at a technical level. Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad charged that Israel "is being intransigent and wants to keep the war going". "There hasn't been any progress in ceasefire talks or negotiations for prisoners' exchange," he said.
Amid the bloodiest ever Gaza conflict, violence has also surged in the occupied West Bank, where an Israeli raid Wednesday on the northern city of Jenin killed three people. Israel has also exchanged daily cross-border fire with Hamas ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The hostilities, in which Israel has also targeted Hamas militants, have raised fears of all-out conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which fought a devastating war in 2006. Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets into northern Israel Wednesday killing a civilian, after Israel carried out a deadly pre-dawn strike in south Lebanon.
